Ouroboros: "Hate Speech" Worse Than Infanticide?

On Monday morning, this blogpost dropped into my facebook News Feed from Wesley J. Smith. Titled “Killing Baby ‘Non-persons’ -- All Grist for the Bioethics Mill,” he had me intrigued, because I am very used to Smith picking up on the latest bioethical movements from the bowels of medical (un)ethicists from around the globe, signifying what kind of world I must prepare myself and my children to face in the coming years. He reports the latest chilling abstract in the Journal of Medical (Un)Ethics calling for the medical community (and I imagine society at large) to give wholesale acceptance of infanticide “after-birth abortion” of any infant, er..after..birth. Strike that strike; it is infanticide.

The abstract says:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

In the last 48 hours since this idea hit the online world, there has thankfully been a public outcry of horror and indignation at this trident of death. But before I could put words down to express my own rejection of infanticide, this is what got excreted out onto the world next: the journal editor’s defense of the authors’ approval of infanticide. ‘So what’s the big deal?’ Savulescu seems to ask. He cites that under certain circumstances, infanticide is already legal in the giant cemetery plot of land known as the Netherlands.

The logic of the article is consistent, he says, which goes something like: There is no meaningful distinction between fetuses and infants. If we do not assign moral value to fetuses in the womb, then we should not assign moral value to infants either. Therefore, killing infants (infanticide) is morally indistinct from killing fetuses (abortion). The logic is correct. But Savulescu, Giublini, and Minerva are very wrong. The metaphysics and ontology of a human being encompasses all stages of life—the “who” of a human person never changes from the moment of conception. Therefore, if moral value exists at all, it must exist at the beginning of life in order to have any real meaning thereafter. Killing fetuses and infants is a moral travesty.

The endgame of such a philosophy of death is a right to murder and a right to be murdered--not much different than stripping down to your skivvies and living the rest of your life in the Peruvian rainforest just fighting to survive each day. Civilization, laws, and abiding by the reality of objective moral values are the difference between a truly progressive society and barbarism. It is the reason Susan Smith is serving a life sentence in prison. If Savulescu, Guiblini, and Minerva preach the worldview worth actualizing, we ought to exonerate Susan Smith, laud her the title “Superfrau,” and give her another car to drown more toddlers in a lake, because medical (un)ethicists have decided that there are no reasons despicable enough from which to save their lives.

But it gets better! Liberal is as liberal does, Momma always said. The main reason why Savulescu decided to stick up for his colleagues is not found in the substance of what they wrote but in the way he perceives they were treated on blogs! [Cough] If I knew at the beginning it was this easy to take his family jewels and put them in a thimble, I wouldn’t have bothered reading his defense. So, he reprints and rails against some unflattering ‘misspellings’ of Giublini and Minerva’s names and some visceral adjectives having to do with political progressivism, sprinkled with a few colorful expletives. Then, he sings the song of classic liberal indignation. “Racist!” “Hate speech!” he croons. Sadly for him, Savulescu has argued his way into a lonely solo. Such throaty whine is the symptom of a permanent laryngitis. He sang away his right to moral outrage the moment he believed it is permissible to kill the innocent among us.

My outlook on the human future teeters on the last vestiges of civilization’s ability to recognize objective moral transgressions when it encounters them. With our culture swimming and reveling in the culture of death, I wonder how enterprises such as the efforts to end sex trafficking and slavery will ever gain a moral foothold in any meaningful way. Sure, we are rightfully appalled by the utter depravity of infanticide, but for how long? As Peter Singer slowly becomes a household name, will his ideas also become household ideas? It has happened in a radically relativized society before, somewhere in the neighborhood of Germany in the 1930s. Our postmodern culture parades about like a Caesar, thinking it has conquered the darkness of objectivity for the light of self-directed moralism. All I can say is "beware the Ides of March." Not even Hitler (or even Singer!) would kill his own mother, yet taken to the logical end, these medical (un)ethics mean the death of many mothers and babies, including their own.

Ouroboros.

Playing the Race Rape Card

The Visible Conservative:  Christians Unleashed show
Pro-Life Friday Monologue - February 24, 2012

This week we saw the latest example of how the pro-abort community can only tell lies and make moot arguments about pro-life legislation that threatens to take away all their tools of ignorance. The Virginia state legislature is (or maybe was) about ready to pass a bill that requires women seeking abortions to obtain an ultrasound signed off by a doctor prior to getting an abortion.  And up until Tuesday, the Governor of VA, Bob McDonnell, was going to sign it. That is, until pro-deathers like Dahlia Lithwick started telling the public that ultrasounds are the equivalent of rape.

Honestly, that is the last gasp of a dying argument right there. The type of ultrasound that she is referring to is the kind that is done with an internal probe used for accurately viewing a baby in the womb early on his/her development, as early as 4 1/2 to 5 weeks. This is where Dahlia Lithwick is sounding off about rape--that this procedure is done internally through the vagina. This is a canard like no other. The Bill does not mandate this particular method of ultrasound, so if a woman does not want the transvaginal ultrasound, she doesn't have to have that one.

What is mandated is that a woman have an ultrasound. Period. If the pregnancy is too early, before 4 1/2 weeks, no method of ultrasound tech will give a proper reading. And if she chooses not to have a TVU, all a woman has to do is wait.

Of course, this is where it gets difficult for the pro-deathers to hold their ground, because waiting only means a greater the risk of complications when aborting. That is why abortionists want the best information possible before performing an abortion -- they want to know accurate gestational age, size, and location within the womb. And in order to do that, they need to do an ultrasound.  Redstate.com reports that Commentary Magazine called up the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood's abortion hotline and received this following recording:

“Patients who have a surgical abortion generally come in for two appointments. At the first visit we do a health assessment, perform all the necessary lab work, and do an ultrasound. This visit generally takes about an hour. At the second visit, the procedure takes place. This visit takes about an hour as well. For out of town patients for whom it would be difficult to make two trips to our office, we’re able to schedule both the initial appointment and the procedure on the same day.


Medical abortions generally require three visits. At the first visit, we do a health assessment, perform all the necessary lab work, and do an ultrasound. This visit takes about an hour. At the second visit, the physician gives the first pill and directions for taking two more pills at home. The third visit is required during which you will have an exam and another ultrasound.”

So.....women who want abortions from Planned Parenthood in Virginia get one, possibly two, ultrasounds anyway? Please, just take a moment to let the realization of a sweet little lie wash over you. A VA bill that mandates that women obtain an ultrasound that they are going to have anyway is called rape on account of a method of ultrasound they don't have to get?  Read the Bill.  It's not in there!  Like I said, women can have the transabdominal ultrasound done if they don't want the transvaginal ultrasound; if they are too early in their pregancies, all they have to do is wait. 

This argument that having a TVU is comitting rape is dumber than a bag of hammers. Ms. Lithwick isn't crying rape to try and help women; the pro-death industry wants pregnant women and the public to remain ignorant so that they can continue to make irrelevant arguments like hers.

Let me round this out by pointing out that the lying itself is not the sad part--all I did was expose the lie of Dahlia Lithwick. The sad part is that lying worked and is muddying the waters of a fairly straightforward bill. The pro-abortion industry got all wee-wee'd up calling something rape that isn't rape. And now, Gov. Bob McDonnell, who was supporting this bill, has now as of Wednesday pulled his endorsement and seems to be bowing to the dragonhead of personal political gain, maybe! The speculation is that McDonnell is on Mitt Romney's short list for VP picks, and you know how politicians hate to let the truth get in the way of stepping up in the world. On the Governor's website, you can find his statement calling to amend the bill to state explicitly that doctors may not rape pregnant women with ultrasound machines...seriously!  This is a totally unecessary delay of what should be a slam dunk for the state of Virginia.  As Redstate.com is correct to point out, VA is looking like it will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  You can call Gov. McDonnell at (804) 786-2211.

Rape is a feeling...

The Visible Conservative:  Christians Unleashed show
Pro-Life Friday Monologue - February 17, 2012

I've read and listened to many people say that abortion should be kept legal in the case of rape or incest. About just as many say that abortion should be kept legal for everybody because some women who become pregnant through rape might want to abort.

The beginning of new life is a biological event. The body of a rapist does not know it is committing rape. Psychologists tell us that rape is not about sex, it's about power. Rape, therefore, isn't about the body, it is an intent [of the mind]--an intent to harm.

The body of a woman does not know what rape is--it is the mind and emotions of the woman that determines whether a sexual encounter is consensual or rape. Rape, therefore, is the violation of the mind by using the body.

The body of a child that is conceived does not know it is conceived through rape. Her life began through the union of an egg and sperm, just like any other life that is conceived. Rape, therefore, has no bearing on the life that begins.

So it makes little sense for people to argue about women's bodies and fetuses. What people are arguing about is how to deal with the tragedy, the emotions surrounding an event, and the injustice of abuse. Tragedy, emotions, injustice--that is what rape is, and they are all abstract objects. You can't touch them; you can't destroy them; you can't see them with your eyes. So how does rape--an act of intent on the mind that results in tragedy and injustice and creates a life that doesn't know how she got there--how does rape justify an abortion, which must violate a woman's body a second time to violate the body of a child in the womb to a bodily death? That does not follow.

Rape is an intent, a feeling that is given and received wholly in the mind. The woman's body is an object to a rapist, no different than a womanizer or an abusive boyfriend (and to tell you the truth, there is no real difference between all of them). A woman is an object to harm that leads to the real harm, which is in the mind. Rape is a feeling, so how does aborting a child from rape take away anything about the rape itself? This whole argument that women have the right to abort a child if they are raped rests on nothing but feelings: perceived resentment toward the child and the horror of carrying the rapist's child. Let me tell you something--resentment and horror are feelings. I'm fully compassionate and understanding about resentment and horror. But how compassion leads to death is more horror, and we should be above that as a civilized, enlightened, caring society.

I've said this before, there is no substantive difference between a child conceived unintentionally in consensual sex and one conceived in rape. The only difference I can see is on the faces of the adults talking about it. A child conceived through rape is only by degrees more unwanted compared to a child that is conceived by a woman and her boyfriend, one-night stand, or whatever. So don't tell me, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, or Women's Media Center...don't tell me there's a meaningful difference between two children in their mother's wombs. That difference exists only in your perception--it exists inside your small, limited minds. Christians are not limited by your definitions of life. It's Christian values that, to be honest, talk about the essential rights of women. You don't get to define my rights; my rights in this world come from God, and so do yours. Remember that the next time you turn your nose up at a child conceived because her mother was raped.  Don't forget to take a quick look at your face in the mirror while you're at it. 'Cause there's the problem right there..in the mirror. Not in the womb.

Ouroboros: Sea Turtle Fetuses > Human Fetuses?

If we can protect sea turtle fetuses from being killed by humans, why can't we protect human fetuses from being killed by humans also?

Westboro Strikes St. Louis Metro Again

I wonder how this group gets around the country so fluidly.  They seem to have no other purpose in life than to protest people out of the blue, people they don't even know.  They are like the college mall preachers I used to encounter in school, and they're just as caustic.

Now you'll see something you will hardly ever see self-styled peaceful Muslims do to the belligerent Muslims: go out and rebuke them, denounce them, and disown them. I have done this to Westboro myself before, and now I get to do it again.

Westboro is neither Baptist nor a church. I should know 'cause I've been, and still am, both Baptist and attend a church. But that's not imortant. What is important is that they neither know Jesus nor know what He loves or doesn't love. These pitiful souls have become that which they hate, which is the sure sign they have no Jesus in them at all. There is no love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control with these folks. Degrading people, rather than criticizing their ideas and actions, disrespects the image of God that everyone is created in. As a follower of Jesus, I believe in dealing harshly with sin and injustice (while first recognizing my own sin and sin-potential) but I cannot eclipse the worth and basic humanity of the sinner through insults and put-downs.

Westboro, you've been a naughty bunch. May each of your tortured souls find the real Jesus who will put an end to your God-forsaken pickets.